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Back Cover Letter from Gaza
October 26th, 2005 -- After a longish trek through the barred enclosures of the compartmentalized shed Israel constructed at the northern entrance to the Gaza Strip and a rough ride in an old taxi through the pot-holed streets of Gaza city, Marna House provided a gate to sanity, if not to paradise. There are no Israeli security cameras in the lush garden of the guesthouse and no Palestinian traffic jams, cars and lorries lunging while donkeys dragging flat carts trot perilously along the verges of the roads. Marna House is — as it has always been — an oasis of calm in the troubled Gaza Strip. The narrow drive was lined with cars and a lush garden floated in a cloud of sweet scented smoke from a dozen hubbly-bubblies. Groups of men and boys sat at low round tables beneath umbrellas. They chatted quietly, drew cool smoke into their lungs through elegant water pipes, snacked on sandwiches or ploughed through chunks of chocolate or carrot cake. The gnarled tree that stands before the house wears a great canvas skirt sheltering a snack bar. The umbrellas, the bar under the tree, the pipes and cakes are new. Gone is the Marna House of old, a laid-back, inexpensive residence for foreign visitors, of long or short term. The garden, once a bare patch of sand bordered by bushes and scrappy trees, has been transformed by blossoming shrubs, flowers and furniture. It is now the most popular cafe in Gaza. The garden offers hard-pressed Palestinian inhabitants of this down-at-heel, dusty, sandy city the sanctuary foreign visitors have enjoyed since Margaret Nassar built Marna House in 1946. Students stop by when they are free from classes, businessmen come for lunch and couples with laughing children dine off kebabs and ice cream. Sitting at a table behind the bar, Basil Shawwa — who is managing the lace for his Aunt Malika — told me a little of Marna House’s history. Margaret Nassar married someone from the British army and had two girls and a boy. After her husband died, she ran a guesthouse for British soldiers in the town centre in order to feed her family. An enterprising woman, she secured free land from the government and built Marna House in stages. After the partition of Palestine and the influx of refugees into the Strip, “Mrs. Nassar’s” was home to a steady flow of relief workers, development specialists, journalists and UN personnel. When I made my first trip to Gaza, Mrs. Nassar herself, a handsome woman with white hair piled on top of her head, was still in charge. Basil observed: “All Gaza knew Mrs. Nassar but not her husband.” While the garden has seen a revolution, the house itself is stuck in a time warp. Its 17 rather bare rooms remain much as they were when Mrs. Nassar was around. The overstuffed sofas and chairs in the sitting room belong to a bygone era, as do many of the books in the glass-fronted shelves in the reception area. Of course, Basil has added satellite television, air-conditioning and internet links to make Marna House competitive with the new hotels which have sprung up since the Palestinian Authority came to town. Margaret Nassar died in 1982 and Marna House was bought by Malika Shawwa, a Gaza native from the Strip’s most prominent family. She is married to a Lebanese man, lives in Beirut and cannot visit Gaza. Her cousin, Aliya Shawwa, managed the guesthouse until 1997, when Basil and his wife Norma took over. During the First Intifada, Aliya convinced the resistance to use Marna House as an information centre, attracting flocks of journalists covering the action. “All the activists met here, ambassadors and famous journalists used to come,” remarked Basil. “The Egyptian writer Taha Hussein stayed. They kept coming until the Second Intifada. Then the foreigners stopped. Gazans stay with their families, not in hotels. Business went down. I started the coffee shop in April 2004 to keep the place alive.” Basil employs four waiters and three pipe-tenders and is particularly proud of his pastry chef, Maher Abu Hassan, who trained in Israel. “People come from all over to eat his cakes.” And smoke. The first smokers turn up at 11 in the morning and the last depart at 11 at night, leaving a haze of pungent smoke hanging in the soft, damp air. |
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